


Molly Weasley and the Day in the Night-time

by feelsnotfeelings



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-13
Updated: 2015-04-13
Packaged: 2018-03-22 17:19:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3737167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/feelsnotfeelings/pseuds/feelsnotfeelings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Molly wondered about their definition of safety. Was it safe to be dragged across land and water? Was it safe to manipulate the entire earth as an experiment? Was it safe to create a spell they couldn’t end, not knowing how much power it would require to sustain?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Molly Weasley and the Day in the Night-time

Molly woke to flashing light and loud metallic screeching from somewhere near the top of the Burrow. A single ray of light was sneaking through a keyhole tear in one of the curtains, but a quick “Reparo" sealed it before her feet had even hit the floor. It wasn’t until she was fully dressed that she noticed a new beam filtering through a gap in the curtains, unremarkable save that it was moving, arcing from Arthur’s pillow to the bedpost and back, stopping just shy of the tip of his long nose. 

She may have apparated to the window; she was there as soon as she thought it, peering around the curtains. The sun lurched back and forth across the sky, as if the morning were being played and rewound over and over again like one of Arthur’s awful Muggle tapes. Below it the fieldgrasses flattened under galeforce winds, snapped briefly straight before being whipped the opposite way. The screeching redoubled and Molly realized it must be the near-forgotten weathervane, the poor thing likely too dizzy to know where it was pointing. She closed the curtains more securely and tiptoed downstairs.

Molly braced herself before tuning the radio to the Wizarding Wireless Network. “Wilhelmina Warrick is here with us now, expert in what muggles call Easter pisicks, though what this has to do with Easte—” he was interrupted by the sound of throat-clearing in the background. “Right, on with it. For those of you perhaps just tuning in, it is indeed 4:18 in the morning, and as Ms. Warrick is about to explain to us, it’s not the sun swinging back and forth—it’s us. And if you haven’t noticed, maybe you need a bit more of Perk-eez Instant Pepper-up Potion, ‘better than tea and half...’”

Molly tuned out, glancing around the room. Could the world really be swinging, as he says? She felt perfectly steady on her feet, wasn’t even jostled when the sun—the earth—suddenly reversed direction. Nothing in the room appeared to have budged, not the W afghan draped between the backs the two armchairs just as the girls had left it the night before, nor the frames hanging level on the walls, not even the fan of World Cup flyers resting as flatly as if Stuck to the table. It could have been a photograph if it hadn’t been for the faint shadows sweeping back and forth across the floor.

As she turned to silence the radio, Molly caught sight of movement above the fireplace. It was the clock. Seven hands pointed straight toward Home while two—Fred and George—ticked between Traveling and Mortal Peril in the slowest seconds she had ever experienced. She didn’t need to look outside to know that the movements would sync up perfectly.

 

↻↺

 

Molly ripped the blankets off her husband, hissing, “Arthur! Your sons—they’ve done it now!”

Arthur shrank into a ball against the early morning air, tucking the ends of his nightshirt around his feet, and grumbled into the pillow, “My? Which—”

“You know damn well, Arthur Weasley. Which did you give permission to go out on their own to ruddy—” 

He was up and cursing the third step before she could finish. She found him prodding the clock with his wand and muttering around a tiny metal claw held between his teeth.

Molly put a hand on his wand arm.

“It’s not broken, Arthur, you know it can’t be. Look outside.”

He turned and rushed to the window, sagging against the frame as he took in the chaos outside. His face lost its color and long-faded freckles surfaced across his cheeks. He was still for several breaths, then his eyes widened and he dashed out through the kitchen.

Molly flicked her wand to right the chairs her husband had toppled in his rush, then turned again to the clock. Though it was the only remaining one, the spellwork that allowed it to function had been passed down through her family since, well, she didn't know. It had been handed down from her grandmother to her mother, then to Molly, and would’ve passed to her brothers had they survived.

When Molly had all but refused to cross the barrier into platform 9 ¾, her mother had sat her down on her trunk and spoken to her gently but firmly. She reminded her of the clock that hung in the hall, described the magic that connected them all to it, like skeins of impossibly thin, unbelievably strong yarn. Described how she had taken them all as newborns, Molly and Fabian and Gideon, had held them before the clock and drawn out a line of magic, touching it to their tiny chests. So that Molly knew that wherever she was, if she was frightened or hurt or lost, her mother would find her.

Molly clung to this memory as she reached out and pulled the source of those threads into her own chest. It settled there like a vital organ—it was her magic after all—beating its own rhythm. In it she felt the slow breaths of her children sleeping upstairs (Bill's and Charlie's more distantly), Arthur's heavy footfalls, and yes, Fred and George's back-and-forth path.

 

↺↻

 

Arthur banged back into the house, wind-whipped and flushed. Pacing the length of the kitchen, he gasped out, almost to himself, “Portkey’s still there, the car, so are all the brooms, obviously, can’t fly in thi—”

“Car? After your son almost gets himself and Harry killed, gets seen, you go and get another flying car!”

He stopped short and nearly tripped as his single galosh caught on a raised floor plank. Guilt flashed across his face, replaced with pleading.

“It doesn’t—not the time, Mollywobbles." 

She wanted to argue, but the magic marked time in her chest, let out and wound back in—a reminder that they indeed had bigger problems at the moment. Sighing, she closed her eyes and focused on that connection, searching it for her boys. 

“I’ll be back soon,” Arthur murmured as he brushed past her, pausing to slip an arm around her waist and press a kiss to her temple. He took a pinch of floo powder from the flowerpot on the mantle and threw it into the hearth. “Ministr— oh!”

Molly had grabbed his arm and pulled him back into the room, scattering soot across the floor. It inched back into the fireplace as the couple stared at each other, incredulous.

“You can’t go whirling into the Ministry like that! People will think something’s wrong.”

“Well, yes, that’s the idea,” said Arthur, reasonably.

“And then come sniffing around to find your entire shed full of spelled objects, not to mention whatever abominations Fred and George might have,” Molly shrieked, then continued more calmly, “In any case, it wouldn’t help, as they’re not here.”

“But the Trace… they could find them,” he said, as though she needed reminding.

He hadn't understood what she was doing with the clock, and she felt a bit of déjà vu as she explained.

“They couldn’t do anything I haven’t already done,” she concluded. “Call Kingsley, call Bill. Bring them here. I’ll find Fred and George.” 

She squeezed his hand and stepped back, concentrating on the sensation of nearness in her chest, forcing it into all her extremities, pushing out all else—the distant weathervane, the gentle crackling of flames, Arthur’s muttered instructions to his patronus. Then she turned on the spot.

 

↻↺

 

Molly scrambled for footing as she appeared on the side of a hill in view of a sparsely populated campsite. She was just in time to see the occasional tent lurch out of the way as a lumpy human shape whizzed away. It floated oddly straight and still, seemingly unaffected by the movement. She thought she saw the coppery glint of red hair in the changing light, and the unwinding sensation in her chest confirmed her suspicions.The connection stretched taut, and she was readying to follow it when it came reeling back in, Fred and George in its wake. They decelerated, arcing within feet of her. Now she could see that they were very slightly sopping, the legs of their trousers darkening toward the bottom as if dip-dyed. A mismatched chain hung around their necks, cobbled from what appeared to be the remains of several unfortunate pocket-watches, and a small gold sphere rattled at the end of a loop clutched in one twin's fist.

The way the boys clung to each other, as if for dear life, was distinctly at odds with the way they were shouting into each other’s faces.

“A Snitch isn’t alive you gobstone.”

“Neither is a Bludger and you can stun o—”

“Perhaps if you’d bewitched a bludger it could knock you round the heads so I don’t have to!” Molly interrupted.

She was robbed the satisfaction of seeing their faces as they reeled away again. Reassured that they’d at least return to the same spot, she took stock: two boys, whole and relatively healthy, one oscillating earth, and one magical prototype that she suspected was the source of all this trouble.

Fred and George leaned a little more heavily on one another as they came zooming back, and the tents, having grown tired of the constant jumping back and forth, were a little slower to clear the way. The twin that had previously only gripped the chain (George, she thought) was now clutching the Snitch in both hands. His jaw moved as if he were speaking but Molly couldn’t hear the words over the rushing wind.

Once within shouting distance she hollered, "TAKE IT OFF BEFORE YOU GET HURT."

“CAN’T TAKE OFF. GOTTA BE STILL,” George managed to force through the wind, and Molly understood why he was holding the ball as he was.The wingless golden Snitch whizzed around inside some kind of ring, much like Moody’s mad eye spun in its socket, and he was failing to keep it in place. The same waters that had saturated his clothing undoubtedly also soaked his hands and slicked the metal.

"COULD YOU BE MORE SPECIFIC?"

“IT’S A SAFETY FEATURE, MOTHER,” they bellowed before slipping again out of earshot.

Molly wondered about their definition of safety. Was it safe to be dragged across land and water? Was it safe to manipulate the entire earth as an experiment? Was it safe to create a spell they couldn’t end, not knowing how much power it would require to sustain?

A spell they couldn’t end. Merlin, she needed to bring Bill here now. She apparated back to the Burrow, treading on a fat brown hen outside the kitchen door as she barrelled through. Three wizards huddled around one end of the table, parchments and quills scattered between them. 

“I found them, they’re near the World Cup campsite. They’re all right for now, but Bill, I need you to come with me right away. Arthur, Kingsley, take the portkey.”

 

↺↻  
  
  


Side-along apparition is exhausting, and even more disorienting than traveling alone. Molly was reeling from being compressed to half-nothing and suddenly felt that there was too much space between her mind and her skull. Still, she had no doubt that the twins’ condition had worsened. Their clothing was dark up to their elbows now and visible sweat stains dripped down their backs. Their feet caught and tangled in a tent tether that dodged them just a second too late.

Bill gasped next to her as he got his bearings, and his grip on her arm tightened before dropping altogether.

“Looks like… modified bridge charm… the Snitch’s hover… oh that is stupid brilliant.”

Molly forced herself to look away as the twins were once again pulled across the campsite; she didn’t want to see what would happen to them, or in what condition they would return. Instead she focused on Bill. While this might not be considered a curse exactly, it was spellwork that needed to be undone, and she had faith in him. He’d had to start from scratch, and she watched as he muttered to himself, eyes closed, testing wand movements, readjusting. Sharper here, straighter arm, round out the end.

Kingsley strode up to Bill’s other side, staring out in the direction the twins had gone. Molly felt Arthur’s hand slip into hers and they exchanged hopeful glances.

“Ready?” she asked when Bill opened his eyes. She could feel the distance shrinking; the twins would be in sight soon. 

Bill only nodded and widened his stance.

As the twins crossed the campsite for what was hopefully the last time, Bill drew in a deep breath and began an incantation. Much of it got lost in the wind that also buffeted his wand arm, but as he finished his eyes widened and his cheeks started to relax. Fred and George descended to stand on their feet. 

And then they didn’t. 

Bill had managed to dismantle the hover charm, but the bridge charm held.  The twins were now being dragged across the ground, and no amount of heel-digging could slow them. The dirt paths quickly muddied their clothing as they tried to regain their footing only to fall again and again.

Arthur cursed.

Molly’s stomach sank as she watched them struggle, exhaustion hampering their movements. They might not survive another trip, might be dragged to death or drown crossing what was likely an ocean, would be crushed when a building couldn’t move out of their way. If they left her sight now her worst fear would be realized— her family, dead on the ground before her.

It wasn’t so much a spell as it was desperation and sheer force of will. Molly braced herself and sought that unwinding feeling, poured all her magic into it until it was heavy and dense and bright, solid gold in her chest. She let it anchor her as she reached out. The thin magic slipped through her fingers like thread. She fed it, gave it memory. Fred and George tumbling down the stairs for breakfast, Fred and George racing toward home on broomsticks—it was twine pinching her skin. Fred and George leaning out the windows of the Hogwarts Express as it coasted into the platform—it was cord burning her palms. Fred and George’s complementary laughs from each side of her, honestly woman you call yourself our mother—it was rope filling her hands. And she pulled.

Molly’s pulse skipped and staggered and her limbs shook as magic coursed through her and out of her. It was too big—it filled all the spaces in her chest and her breath came in gasps. Sweat soaked her dress, her hair, and she stank of it. She felt her face grow hot with the effort as she moved the world under her sons, pulled them near and nearer to her until she could look down into their faces.

The wind had died down to a gentle breeze and the light held steady. In the hush, staggered whispers of Finite Incantatem. Molly unlooped the chain from around Fred and George’s necks and flung it away.

She heard a gasp and Bill’s voice say, “Wait! Don’t destroy that!” just before she collapsed from relief and exhaustion

 

↻↺

 

Molly looked up to the low rumble of a car engine just in time to see Kingsley back the half-enchanted Mini out of the shed and drive away in it, the tires taking longer than expected to come back to the ground after hitting a particularly large bump. It was a steep price to pay for a few planted memories, but she was glad be rid of it, and Arthur was glad no one was arrested.

She sat at the head of the table drinking her fourth hot chocolate of the day, listening to the children talking animatedly in the living room about the Quidditch World Cup that was to be held the next day. Fred and George sniffled and their voices were hoarser than yesterday, but summer colds do tend to come on quickly, as she told them when they stumbled out of bed around noontime. They don’t remember, of course, but Molly does. She remembers holding the earth below their feet.


End file.
